Today, we want to share some simple ideas for maintaining and presenting a professional art education teaching portfolio. Most college students who major in art education are required to create a professional experience portfolio before they graduate from college. The school that I graduated from many years ago, encouraged us to create a binder to keep and present our teaching experience information in. Over the years after graduation, I continued to add pictures, lesson examples, fliers, workshops, etc. to the portfolio. It's important to do this because, you may need to interview for a new teaching position. Meanwhile I ended up with a huge stack of teaching experience that was to large to fit into a regular 2" binder. I finally decided that I wanted to create a more concise way to present my teaching portfolio. Thus, I created two new versions of my portfolio.

First, I created a digital version of my portfolio using Power Point. It included, pictures of my certifications, resumes, student work ,awards, personal artwork, lessons, etc. What's great about a digital portfolio is that you can send it to a potential employer to preview before an interview. You can also create a free website of your portfolio using websites like www.weebly.com.The second version, which works really well in an interview, is a picture book using websites like www.shutterfly.com . This version is small, sleek, easy to carry/present and is very impressive to administrators who are interviewing you. I also created a smaller booklet displaying student artwork from classes that I taught over the years. Do you have any creative ideas on how to present and maintain a professional portfolio? Share them by commenting below.